Re: [Harp-L] re: cheap harps

[Warren Bee <wbharptime2@xxxxxxxxx>]

great story George. You had harmonica in your bones at birth!


On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:00 PM, George Miklas <harmonicat@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Warren, good point!  So let me throw in my little story... It was December
> 25th, 1978, and I woke up anticipating that my mom and dad would give me a
> chord harmonica that day.  They did not.  Instead, they gave me a bass
> harmonica.  I wanted to play the chord so much, that I took a piece of
> cardboard that afternoon, cut it 24" long, drew a grid on it and named all
> of the chords as they are played on a Hohner 48-Chord Harmonica.  For the
> next 4 months, I practiced playing the chord harmonica on that piece of
> brown cardboard box.  April 17th, 1979 was my 14th birthday, but it was
> also the Steel Valley Harmonica Club meeting.  That night our friend Jack
> Allison walked into the hall with a chord harmonica.  Evidently it was
> planned that my dad would buy it for $100.  After dad and Jack made the
> exchange, dad turned and handed me the 30 year old chord harmonica saying
> "Happy Birthday."  Because I had practiced on a brown cardboard box for 4
> months, I took the chord and played it on the open mic that very first
> night.  I played that old chord for years, and still own it today.  That
> one has been retuned to Major 7th, Minor 7th, Major 6th and Minor 6th
> chords--I built a 4-deck chord in 1982 modeled after Al Smiths, and that
> chord was one of my first retuning projects.
>
>
>
> *George Miklas,* Harmonica Performing Artist and Entertainer<http://harmonicagallery.com/>
>
> *THE HARMONICA WIZARD MARCH* by John Philip Sousa<http://harmonicagallery.com/sousa>
> -  *Harmonica Repair* Done Right by George<http://harmonicagallery.com/repair>
> -  *HOHNER <http://us.playhohner.com/>* *Harmonicas*<http://us.playhohner.com/>
> *...Just Breathe* <http://us.playhohner.com/>
> *SPAH *- Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica,
> <http://spah.org/>a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to
> serving the harmonica community. <http://spah.org/>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 9:33 PM, Warren Bee <wbharptime2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Jimi Hendrix started strumming on a broom. So much doom and gloom about
>> cheapo harps. Sometimes I just have to shake my head. Maybe some were born
>> with a silver harp in their mouth. I wonder how many great players started
>> on a cheapo. The operative word STARTED. I would rather give a kid a
>> BluesBand  instead of a lecture on saving his/her pennys for a "real harp"
>> , I used to sell 5.00 harps at a flea market. Many times a kid would pick
>> one up and the first words out of the parents mouth was NO. I don't want
>> to
>> hear that racket. As they walked away I would say; Smoking crack is quiet
>> maybe that would be better.
>>
>> WB
>>
>
>